The generics of translation

[Adrian Buehlmann]

On 2012-07-02 20:57, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-07-02 at 18:34 +0200, Adrian Buehlmann wrote:
>> On 2012-07-02 17:58, Martin Schröder wrote:
>>> Am 02.07.2012 17:43, schrieb Thomas Arendsen Hein:
>>>> "vereinen" klingt hier für mich leicht unpassend, das Substantiv
>>>> wäre ohnehin "Vereinigung" (nicht "Vereinung"), daher mein
>>>> Vorschlag: "vereinigen" und "Vereinigung"
>>>
>>> Beide haben ziemlich genau die gleiche Bedeutung. "Die Vereinung" ist
>>> tatsächlich sehr ungebräuchlich. "Das Vereinen" wiederum nicht.
>>>
>>> Ich bin weiterhin für "vereinen" oder dafür, "zusammenführen" zu behalten.
>>
>> I didn't really want to take part in your decision making processes, so
>> please just take my posting as an idea. After all, there was a call for
>> ideas... :-)
>>
>> And perhaps this should be taken off-list, if the discussion continues
>> in German. Matt doesn't seem to like discussions in non-English on this
>> list.
> 
> Ugh. Moving this discussion off-list is _exactly_ counter to my point.

Then I misunderstood the link you posted. But I don't see it as much of
a problem if there are off list discussions.

> Instead, you're practically painting me as someone who insists on
> English just because he arbitrarily hates foreigners or something.
> Thanks!

Wow! Calm down. Where did I imply or say that? That's wrong.

You seem to be assuming a lot of bad faith where there isn't. Really.

> If you're writing in a language that only a subset of Mercurial
> translators can read, then every group of translators is just going to
> have discussions about the same generic issues:
> 
> - should we copy jargon used by other SCMs or perfect our own?
> - should we translate metaphorically or technically?
> - which of the above is more important?
> - etc.
> 
> EVERY word choice decision, even though it looks like it's just
> language-specific trivia on the surface, is going to be rooted in more
> generic principles. Formulating those principles 11 times each in 11
> languages is the wrong process. And just choosing words based on what
> feels right at a given moment is also the wrong process. Instead, we
> should actively look for the generic issues, formulate one set of rules,
> and apply them consistently within and across languages, and iteratively
> improve the rules as we discover corner cases.
> 
> As a practical matter, that simply can't happen if we discuss these
> issues in a language other than English.
> 
> Here's an example proposal:
> 
> --------
> 
> When translating a Mercurial-specific term like "pull":
> 
> - distinguish between usage as a literal command name (untranslated) and
> as jargon (translated)
> - translate the components of the metaphor (ie "push and pull a stack of
> papers") to a natural set in the target language so that people can
> benefit from the metaphor
> - if there's no obvious translation of the metaphor, consider using a
> transliteration[1] 
> - terms that are likely to be translated back to the original English
> term aid in cross-language communication (eg German<->Japanese)
> - be wary of translation of Mercurial-specific terms to related jargon,
> such as "pull"/"clone" -> <download>[2] as this may give users an
> incomplete or wrong impression and result in confusing bug reports:
> 
>   Q: I did a download and my changes were missing
>   A: What do you mean by download??
> 
> When translating a non-Mercurial-specific term like "patch":
> 
> - look for a widely-established precedent as used by other similar tools
> for the technical term "patch"
> - if multiple translations are well-established, favor the one that more
> closely matches the metaphor (ie "patch a tire")
> - otherwise, if a transliteration is well-established, favor it
> - if no translations are well-established, translate the metaphor as
> above
> 
> When translating pure jargon like "grep":
> 
> - favor transliteration
> 
> Keep a glossary at the head of the .po file
> 
> Focus on tracking the stable branch
> 
> [1] Note that "transliteration" is generally the same as "exact copy"
> for languages using a Latin alphabet
> [2] Note that if <download> was the optimal translation of "pull", the
> English term probably would have been "download".
> 
> -----
> 
> Discuss, please.
>